Page 1992 - war-and-peace

thing. From the midst of that crowd terrible screams arose.
Petya galloped up, and the first thing he saw was the pale
face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman, clutching the han-
dle of a lance that had been aimed at him.
‘Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!’ shouted Petya, and giving rein
to his excited horse he galloped forward along the village
street.
He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hus-
sars, and ragged Russian prisoners, who had come running
from both sides of the road, were shouting something loud-
ly and incoherently. A gallant-looking Frenchman, in a blue
overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face, had been
defending himself against the hussars. When Petya gal-
loped up the Frenchman had already fallen. ‘Too late again!’
flashed through Petya’s mind and he galloped on to the
place from which the rapid firing could be heard. The shots
came from the yard of the landowner’s house he had visited
the night before with Dolokhov. The French were mak-
ing a stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly
overgrown with bushes and were firing at the Cossacks
who crowded at the gateway. Through the smoke, as he ap-
proached the gate, Petya saw Dolokhov, whose face was of a
pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. ‘Go round! Wait for
the infantry!’ he exclaimed as Petya rode up to him.
‘Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!’ shouted Petya, and without
pausing a moment galloped to the place whence came the
sounds of firing and where the smoke was thickest.
A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past,
while others plashed against something. The Cossacks

1992 War and Peace